Morton Mallory
"Why use alohomora, when you can just blow the wall up and then repair it?" - probably Mallory at some point. Appearance Short curly hair, fairly tall, rugged looks and stubbles for a beard, the man clearly has little concern for his appearance. This is further exemplified by his choice of apparel, somehow always appearing in a worn robe, with a simple brown t-shirt under it. When it’s time for a bit of exploration, he usually dons a satchel with an extension charm on it, in which he can store all of his needs for the trip. Personality A warmhearted and talkative man. He enjoys meeting new people wherever he goes, but for some reason he never lets them get too close, perhaps a byproduct of his constant traveling as a curse breaker. He loves to make an entrance! Both figuratively and very very literally. But of course, in his own mind he always takes great care to ensure nobody winds up hurt by these entrances. This tends to land him in trouble with the more calm professors, especially Hannah, who don't agree with Mallory's ideas of what makes for a safe classroom experience. This tendency of making bombardastic''' entrances comes from a lifetime of cursebreaking escapades. After all, why bother carefully digging out ruins like the muggles, taking care that the place is left unharmed as you explore further inside of the centuries old buildings - when you can simply blow up the nearest wall, walk inside, and use magic to repair it all neatly back together? Sometimes it even takes care of the occasional ruin-dwelling unfriendly (and in the case of inferi, obsessively hugging intruders) creatures! Some even suspect Mallory has gone through this practice so often he's even forgotten the simple spell: Alohomora. '' '' He is excited to start teaching History of Magic, where he hopes to teach his students that a critical mind and astute observational skills are essential to a historian. He believes that you won’t learn anything if you’re just parroting a book without asking the right questions. For this reason, Mallory seldomly asks his students to bring out their books or read a specific chapter. Instead for preparation for his classes, he encourages the student to find information in a multitude of sources around the castle - including interviewing ghosts and other castle-dwellers. He'd rather they spent their entire day contemplating how people of the past thought, acted and felt, instead of reading about it somewhere. The idea of thinking for yourself extends to his classes as well, doubt anything the man says, and he will be happy. He seems rather taken with certain other professors, especially the Hufflepuff Herbology teacher. '''Background' Born to muggle parents on the 28th of January 1985, in rural east England, Morton was always full of curiosity and a hunger for knowledge. He would spend most of his childhood skipping muggle school, and instead spend the time on exploration, running through the local forest to explore the nearby ruins of a castle, something which his parents only frowned upon. Their attempts to keep the boy in school and out of the ruins, however, were futile. That being said, his family was a loving one, everyone always being around to support one another. Strange things had sometimes happened around the boy, things he couldn’t explain. At least not until his 11th year, where he finally got his letter. At Hogwarts the hat had been on the verge of assigning him to Ravenclaw, but in the end, he was sorted into Hufflepuff. It was during his time at Hogwarts that his interest in history developed into an obsession. He’d spend his times either in the library or sneaking around the castle, trying to learn more about its history up close. At Hogwarts During his years at Hogwarts he made many friends, some of whom are now teaching at the school alongside him! Some of whom joined him for cursebreaking, and some of whom who are now gone from this world. The tattered old coat he wears and refuses to repair, belonged to one of these people, one who was very close to him. He only takes it off on one particular day. After graduating he spent his time traveling around the world, researching history wherever he could. From his travels he has gathered plenty of artifacts, which he has studied avidly. His dream is to study and document as many artifacts as he can. Unfortunately, his love for the critical thought process reflects back on himself when writing his book. It’s just never good enough, and so he just keeps on traveling and researching new artifacts, making his pile of pending papers ever bigger. in 2018 he decided to accept one of the positions as a professor of History of Magic at Hogwarts: School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, in the hopes that he can finally settle down and write his book. Sadly, it’s not that easy to change one's way of life, and so Mallory always longs for more adventures to be had, resulting in quite a few expeditions around the castle grounds. As an adult he has an advantage that his younger self never had: Being able to walk freely around the castle, whatever the time may be. Mallory found himself absolutely in love with teaching! He had dreaded it for so long. Would he miss the adventure? The travels? The discoveries? He had at first of course. But then something had happened... Something magical ;) ''if you will, and of course you will. He no longer missed his travels. He had friends and loved ones here at the castle, and he couldn't bear to be apart from them. At the same time. He was beginning to feel that no discovery, no matter how important or fascinating, could really hold a candle to seeing the kids light up whenever he taught them something. He took great pride in teaching all who wanted to be taught. Nothing could make him smile more than when one of his students would show up at his office, with lots of questions! And not just because it gave him an excuse not to focus on the piles of paperwork. Nearing the end of his time as a professor, he had found a curious looking egg in China, from which a hoo-hoo hatched. The tiny red firebird, named Suzu, loved peace above all else, and would scold the man whenever he did something reckless. Life after Hogwarts Morton Mallory was sitting by his desk, with his face deeply planted on top of it. To those who knew him, it was not an unfamiliar sight. After all, he'd had a tendency of napping on his desk through all his years at Hogwarts. The only difference was that his once brown locks of hair had now shared his scalp with a few grey ones. The man smiled fondly. ''Everything comes to an end. He thought as he felt the sun light escape through the nearest window, bathing his cheek with warmth. Mallory had done it. He had done the impossible! He had settled down, gotten married, started a family! Good Work Mallory, Thank you, Mallory. He thought with a slight chuckle as he sat back up in his chair, and looked around the office. It was so unlike any office he'd ever had. The walls were not littered with random artifacts from his travels, but instead decorated with photographs, paintings and long, green leaves. Everywhere he looked, his family smiled at him from within a little frame. Many of the pictures were of just him and a pregnant Hannah, then suddenly someone new appeared - A little blonde baby. The pictures from that point showed a family, or as Mal thought of it, a complete family. With the little girl growing ever bigger. He looked to the right where the newest photos stood.From this picture, the little girl smiled mischievously at her dad as she swung a toy wand at him, mouthing the words "Bumburdarrr Mirximuh!!". Mallory chuckled fondly. "That's my girl." He nodded at the picture. Hannah had of course been quite insistent on her husband not teaching their daughter any explosive spells.But who knows, he might accidentally have winded up performing the magic in front of her many times. Maybe he'd even had a few off-days and accidentally done the spell very slowly. Who is to say what the girl will pick up. He certainly taught her nothing. It's not his fault if she's really good at copying right? He looked down at the stack of papers with a sigh. The first one simply bore a heading. "History and mystery! By Morton Mallory". It was a textbook for history. How ironic, he'd spent his years at Hogwarts teaching students not to just learn everything from a book, and now here he was... Writing one. Sometimes, he catches himself starring out the window, wondering what his students are up to. If they are okay. If they got the NEWTs they wanted, and hopefully, got the jobs they had always dreamt of. Who knows? Maybe one of them, or several of them! He felt himself getting oddly excited. Will become teachers themselves, maybe they will even teach little Melody one day! "Daddy!" a tug at his sleeve broke his daydreaming. He looked down to see the little girl starring at him with a determined look. She was holding her little toy wand. "Teach me the super best spell again dad!" Mallory chuckled heartily as he lifted the girl up on his knee and brought out his wand. "Watch closely Melody! And don't tell your mom okay?" The girl nodded as Mallory pointed his wand at the wall behind his desk, the girl echoed his movement. "Bombarda" He said slowly. he girl repeated. "Bumpurdah". Mal smiled and held up three fingers in front of her, as if to do a silent countdown in '''''3. He put down one finger 2''. The girls gaze intensified on the wall. Then another finger ''1. She took in a deep breath before her farther put down the third and last finger go! "Maxima!" They both bellowed as a jet of white light shot out from the mans wand, before colliding with the wall. A huge explosion echoed throughout the countryside, sending hordes of crows flying angrily by the disturbance. As fate would have it, the same could be said for the wall, which was currently being propelled across the garden, through the fence, through a scarecrow, before landing with a clonk in the field. The girl clapped happily as she roared with laughter. "Perhaps my best work yet!" The man smiled as he pocketed his wand. He was still chuckling as he looked behind him, and met his wife's face. He gulped before looking at the girl in his lap. "RUN!" He told her as they ran through the hole in the wall, away from Hannah, in a game of chase. The girl was chuckling happily throughout the entire chase. "She's gonna catch us dad!" She chuckled as her mom made a crab-like pincer movement with her fingers at the girl. "Oh no! Sacrifice yourself for daddy! Don't let her get me!" He yelled back with a chuckle as the woman caught the girl. "Gotcha!" It wasn't long before she caught her husband as well, resulting in much laughter from all three. Gallery By the infinitely talented Mazarine. (i have no idea how gallery works :( ) Category:Professors Category:Characters Category:Hufflepuffs Category:Muggle-borns Category:Males